Should Councilman Robinson Be Censured?

Today we’ll discuss whether or not Councilman Robinson should be censured by the Council for his recent actions. In case you’re new to this discussion, click here.

BACKGROUND

Three weeks ago, during a discussion about the new Police contract and the dramatic increase of nearly $900,000, Councilman Nick and I initiated a conversation about ways to maintain the current standards of service while reducing the future costs including exploring bids from other cities as well as the possibilities of forming our own multi-city Police Department. We proposed an ad hoc committee consisting of two Council members, the Police Chief, and the City Manager. Councilman Robinson was bitterly opposed, made personal attacks on me during the meeting, and had to be calmed down by Councilman Nick.

Our effort failed as Mayor Voigts sided with Councilman Robinson and, in the absence of Councilman Hamilton, the vote ended up 2-2, and the motion died on the floor.

After the meeting I published two articles in The Patch talking about the need for the ad hoc committee as well as correcting some misleading information Councilman Robinson spread during the meeting. Robinson responded viciously on the Patch, called me an “imbecile”, “moron”, and “vengeance seeker” and said that what I wrote were “lies, lies, and more lies”. In his writing on The Patch and on his Facebook page, Robinson never established that anything I said was a lie, much less incorrect. Moreover he offered so much more misleading information it took me two articles to correct the mistakes.

CITY CODE

Councilman Robinson is a public official and he is bound by the City’s Code of Conduct which specifically calls for

• · “integrity in what we do”,
• · “model ethical and civil behavior”,
• · “making factual information available”,
• · “telling the truth”,
• · “refrain from abusive conduct, personal charges or verbal attacks upon the character, motives, ethics, morals, or comments of other Members of the Council.

VIOLATIONS OF CITY CODE

Councilman Robinson appears to have violated all of these tenants. More specifically, there are two major breaches –

A. Abusive conduct, verbal attacks…

At the Council meeting Councilman Robinson called me “childish” but in his first Patch article he called me an “imbecile”, moron”, “vengeance seeker” and said that what I wrote were “lies, lies, and more lies”. Later he added that I had made “unfounded accusations and innuendoes.”

B. Telling the truth…making factual information available

The long long list of false information provided by Councilman Robinson includes the following –

• · Robinson was wrong when he said I claimed that North cities had a lower cost per capita.
• · Robinson was wrong when he gave the per capita costs of police services in Stanton.
• · Robinson was wrong when he said that Lake Forest does not have the problem of an imbalance in reciprocal services (like the one that Laguna Hills has with Laguna Woods).
• · Robinson was wrong when he claimed that the figures offered by OCSD are true figures.
• · Robinson was wrong when he said that I did not explain the charter for the ad hoc committee.
• · Robinson was wrong when he implied that a budget was necessary in order to form an ad hoc committee.
• · Robinson was wrong when he implied that 2 Council members can solicit bids from cities to replace OCSD as our contract Police department.

There’s more, but let’s just go with these.

In previous articles I substantiated the case for how and why Councilman Robinson gave out false information. Of course every one makes mistakes and no one can recall all the facts all the time 100% correctly. But these errors that Councilman Robinson made were not from the dais nor were they made on the basis of memory. Councilman Robinson had plenty of time to research all these issues to be sure that he was correct. Moreover, Councilman Robinson offered these incorrect facts in a (futile) attempt to prove that I had lied or at best misrepresented the facts, so in such a case, the duty to be accurate was even more compelling.

CENSURE

In the history of Lake Forest no City Council has ever censured a fellow Council member, until March 3, 2015. Recall that in this case Councilman Robinson led the charge to censure Councilman Nick for conduct unbecoming a City Council member. Let’s look at what Councilman Nick did to deserve his censure –

The ostensible case against Councilman Nick was based on three claims, all made by Councilman Robinson –

1. Councilman Nick used a racial slur in a private conversation with Bob Holzclaw and me, outside City Hall, overheard only by Councilman Robinson.

2. When asked why he had to resort to suing Lake Forest Councilman Nick said that when one has a grievance with the government, one can do the civil thing by taking what’s in fact called a civil action by filing a complaint in court or resort to a machine gun.

3. . When making a comment about punishment of offenders, he said that they should be hanged.

As far as the racial slur is concerned, neither I nor Bob Holzclaw remembered this happening, and because I am particularly sensitive to the use of that word, I doubt seriously that it ever happened. Councilman Nick denied it. We have only Councilman Robinson’s word that it is true, and we’ve now seen how well we can trust his statements.

As to the remarks about the machine gun and the hanging, they were insensitive remarks for a public official to make, weren’t meant to be taken seriously, but nonetheless not his finest moments. This certainly does not rises to the level of demanding or deserving censure. If every unwise remark we made caused a censure, no one would be spared.

Apart from the flimsy case as presented, there was a subtext behind the movement to censure Councilman Nick, and this included…

1. The fact that he sued the City a few years ago

2. The fact that Nick removed campaign signs, which had been placed illegally, but belonged to Voigts and Hamilton, both of whom were heavily supported and endorsed by Robinson in the 2014 election.

While Councilmen Voigts and Robinson did not offer reasoning, they supported Council members Robinson’s move to censure Councilman Nick and then voted to strip him of his membership in committees.

I voted against the censure. I said that while Councilman Nick was sometimes an embarrassment to me, the other Council members were also an embarrassment to me, and especially because each of them takes campaign contributions from people with City contracts, or vying for City contracts, and from the building industry that are getting zone changes and permit variances from their votes. I considered their actions far more egregious than Nick’s, and Nick has never taken any campaign funds from vested or special interests.

NICK VS. ROBINSON

Now let’s look at the case against Robinson and compare that with the case against Nick.

Suing the City: Nick sued Lake Forest which is the City where he owns a business. Robinson sued Los Angeles which is the City where he own a business. Click Here for information about Robinson’s lawsuit.

Being arrested: Nick incident was in October 2014 but nearly a year later, the DA has declined to bring the case to trial or even offer any evidence. Robinson’s company was cited at least twice for fraudulently representing the weight of the contents of their trucks. Robinson settled and paid a heavy penalty. Click Here for information about Robinson’s arrests.

Campaign activities: Nick was criticized for taking signs that he thought were illegally placed. Though not illegal (according to the law), he probably should have had City staff do it. Robinson was criticized for yelling at a Grandmother and her young children, for threatening them and using his position as Mayor, and for confiscating the flyers (for candidate Liz Miller) they were trying to distribute (See OCSD report). He was also criticized for telling a merchant that if he did not take down a banner of mine, as Mayor, he would see that the merchant lost business.

Language: Nick was criticized for language which wasn’t meant to be serious, but probably was unwise. Robinson called a fellow council member a “moron” and an “imbecile”. He said two Council members were “vengeance seekers”. He accused a Council member of lying and making unfounded accusations.

Now you tell me. In this list of comparisons, who is the most egregious?

SHOULD ROBINSON BE CENSURED?

I am not an impartial observer since I was the victim of Councilman Robinson’s multiple violations against City Code. Nonetheless, I have an opinion, and it seems to me that Councilman Robinson’s behavior far exceeds the behavior of Councilman Nick in frequency, severity, and quality. If Councilman Nick’s behavior deserved censure, Councilman Robinson’s behavior demands it.

Putting aside the comparison between Nick and Robinson, it seems to me that there is a prima facie case against Councilman Robinson. He did, by definition, violate the City’s code of conduct on multiple times for multiple causes and continued to violate the code long after being reprimanded by multiple individuals.

Councilman Robinson and Mayor Pro Tem Hamilton are friends. Robinson voted to put him on the Planning Commission and then supported him for his run for City Council. Robinson endorsed him and gave him $1000. He even appeared in advertisements endorsing him, paid for by a Political Action Committee funded by developers.

Tonight Mayor Pro Tem Hamilton will be asked to vote to put the issue of censuring Councilman Robinson on the agenda for the next City Council meeting. He will have to choose between his loyalty to his friend and his loyalty to the residents of the City of Lake Forest. I hope he makes the right choice.

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